I agree League as a sport is poor. Witness the Magic Weekend which cannot attract as many punters as one game put on by Quins RU and Twickenham... kinda says it all.

The game has no grand vision and it is dying.

What League needs is visionaries and not the deluded nonsense we hear about it being the greatest game. If League dies in London then it becomes even more parochial...

No one cares about your victim mentality on these boards.

To be honest Fax we all know why licencing was brought in, it had nothing to do with the reasons given, and it definitely had nothing to do with the likes of yourselves or us.
Wigan nearly went down and the 'big four' panicked and brought in a system to keep them safe no matter what. The fact that one of those 'big four' have since imploded just underlines what a mockery it always was.

I must admit I've always been of the same view.

Maybe but the biggest issue with the Franchise system was that it was open to abuse by interpretation by a very manipulative and corrupt RFL who changed the rules to suit SL clubs yet made those outside SL stick to their 'licence box tick exercise' rigidly and all this was done by almost secret ballot so nobody saw the true submissions by the Championship clubs so nobody would ever know whose did tick all the boxes or not.
That is my biggest issue with the RFL they are a closed shop and have total control, under the Franchise system the SL clubs barked to the RFL's tune as they dare not upset them so as to stay in SL and those outside SL had to do the same to stand any chance of ever getting in to SL, which was slim. Nigel Wood has as much power as Putin has in Russia and is probably as corrupt in most peoples eyes yet who will ever get him out???